How to Build a UX Strategy

How a company interacts with end users impacts UX. A positive UX drives increased user engagement and retention, while a negative experience causes a company to fall behind its rivals in the global marketplace. In addition, a business' services and products may affect UX, and ultimately, determine whether an end user continues to leverage a mobile or web app or chooses an alternative.

A business that wants to implement a mobile or web app must ensure that its UX strategy meets the needs of its end users. Deploying an effective UX strategy, however, can be exceedingly difficult for businesses that lack the necessary experience and knowledge relative to UX.

So what does it take to build a successful UX strategy? To understand how to develop a UX strategy blueprint, let's first examine the definition of UX and its implications for companies and end users.

Why Is UX Important for Businesses and End Users?

No mobile or web app is built in a silo, instead, many departments within a business commonly work together to ensure this app fulfill end users' requests.

For example, consider your favorite app. It likely features a user-friendly design, as it ensures you can access its key features quickly and easily on any device, at any time.

In the same vein, a business' UX strategy is a key component of a company's mobile or web app development process. Moreover, under no circumstances should the plan go ignored, otherwise, an app may be doomed to fail from the outset.

A company may spend many hours trying to add innovative features to its app. However, these features are meaningless if a business fails to prioritize its UX strategy.

Comparatively, a UX strategy should enable a company to focus on finding ways to make it simple for users to become more productive. Whether it's empowering end users to retrieve data from a mobile or web app, or access various features, a UX strategy will help a business establish goals for its app and work toward achieving them quickly and efficiently.

How Does UX Differ from User Interface (UI)?

Although UX and UI both involve the end user, each term has a distinct definition.

We've already established that UX is a key consideration during the development of many apps because it shapes how an end user interacts with a product. Moreover, with a successful UX, a company can work toward building trust with end users and bolster its app engagement and retention levels as well.

On the other hand, there's the user interface (UI), a complementary component of UX.

UX empowers businesses to deliver an engaging experience that makes it quick and easy for end users to maximize the value of any app, at any time.

UI gives end users the ability to access app features and functionality immediately. It is an essential component of every app, and when evaluated in conjunction with UX, can make a world of difference for businesses.

UI's effectiveness is one of the components of UX. If an app's functionality is meeting user needs and the UI allows users to fully use the app with ease, then the user experience is positive. Conversely, an app that features a subpar UI likely may require additional work to satisfy end users' needs.

UI is a large part of UX. It plays a vital role, however it si not the only component that dictates whether UX is positive or negative.

Businesses must consider UI as part of the UX, along with an app's features and other components. By doing so, companies can improve their chances of deploying apps that end users will enjoy.

Why Does Your Business Need a UX Strategy?

95 percent of users said they agree with the following statement: "Good user experience just makes sense."

83 percent described a seamless UX across all devices as "somewhat or very important."

52 percent pointed out they were less likely to engage with a company that provided a poor mobile UX.

With mobile and web apps, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Thus, you'll want to do everything possible to engage users and garner their attention. Utilizing the right UX strategy in place, your company will be equipped to do just that.

Remember, businesses big and small are designing and deploying apps, and it is paramount for your company to deploy one that hits the mark with end users immediately.

A UX strategy, meanwhile, ensures your business is prepared to create apps that its end users can enjoy. This plan serves as an outline that your company can use to create the right app for your target audience. Plus, it’s adaptable as the development process progresses, enabling you to remain flexible and make changes as needed.

How Can Your Business Build a Successful UX Strategy?

Use your app experience to your advantage.Is there an app that delivers an outstanding UX that your business wants to replicate? Take a close look at this app and incorporate the UX features you like into your company's UX strategy. By doing so, you'll be able to narrow your focus and move closer to developing a successful UX plan.Millions of apps are available, so there likely are many that could influence the development of your company's new app as well.However, try to create a list of a few that stand out from the pack, and you'll be able to incorporate some of the key features of these apps into your UX strategy instantly.

Craft storyboards.Storyboards offer great mock-ups that show how you'll want your app to look and perform. As such, those who craft storyboards as part of the development of a UX strategy can move closer to creating high-performing, user-friendly apps.A storyboard usually offers an ideal way to get feedback from users. It typically focuses on your UX strategy and its goals, ensuring you can stay on track with your plan. Moreover, a storyboard requires no artistic talent to create and merely serves as an option to brainstorm ideas about how your app will look to end users.

Conduct tests.How will you know if your app meets your end users' needs if you don't test it? Incorporate testing into your UX strategy, and you'll be able to discover your app's weaknesses and strengths during the development process.Creating a regular testing schedule and sticking to it usually is a good idea. With assessment results at your disposal, your business can work toward transforming an app's weaknesses into strengths, as well as optimizing the UX.

Collect feedback.An app is an ongoing project, one that needs continuous updates to ensure end users are fully support at all times.For companies that prioritize UX, collecting feedback is crucial, as it enables them to understand whether their apps hit the mark with end users.Feedback can come from a variety of sources — everything from end user surveys to social media. Businesses that explore end user reviews can use this feedback to build an app that delivers a great UX day after day.

How Can Your Business Provide a Personalized UX?

The return on investment (ROI) of a positive UX is significant, especially if a business goes above and beyond the call of duty to ensure its end users receive a personalized UX. For example, IBM notes that that a $1 investment in UX may result in ROI that ranges from $10 to $100. This shows that even a minor UX investment can go a long way, particularly for businesses that strive to deliver a personalized experience for end users.

Personalization remains a goal in many industries, and new technologies have made it easier for many companies to design and deploy apps that expand the boundaries of what a personalized UX means. Recently, Libro Credit Union wanted to find a way to create an app that provided an outstanding personalized UX.

Libro, Ontario's second-largest credit union, has a mission to support "the well-being of people, businesses and communities by providing high-quality financial coaching and profit sharing." To accomplish this mission, Libro offers financial products and services for business and consumers via 31 branches and 4,000 ATMs across Canada.

When it came to driving a personalized UX, Libro teamed up with Rossul, a UX and UI design agency that has supported firms in numerous industries for the last 15 years. With Rossul's assistance, Libro was able to achieve its UX goals.

To guarantee Libro could deliver personalized banking experiences, Rossul found a way "to make the online banking user experience even more personal by making the UI responding to user life events."

"The (Libro) system uses different ways to congratulate users on their life events, such as birthday and anniversaries, display season greetings and state holidays. Down the road, users will be allowed to upload custom images or use pre-defined image libraries to craft individual UI themes," Rossul noted.

"As the world goes digital, the challenge for Libro was how best to differentiate by bringing our unique approach online without compromising its quality," Ketelaars said. "[Rossul ensured] strong results through user testing and helped build a roadmap for future installations."

Today, Libro remains a top choice for personal and business banking in Canada. It continues to offer a mobile banking app that delivers a number of features for its end users, including:

Accounts Dashboard — Ensures end users can stay up to date on their recent banking transactions.

Bill Payment and Account Transfer Capabilities — End users can pay bills and transfer money from one account to another with ease thanks to the app's bill payment and account transfer capabilities.

DepositAnywhere™ — With DepositAnywhere™, the name says it all. End users no longer need to go to a bank to deposit a check, and instead, can snap a photo of a check and deposit it to their account in seconds.

The Libro app drives self-service, helping end users enjoy a memorable UX and providing Libro with an opportunity to bolster its app user engagement levels as well.

Moreover, none of this would have been possible without the added UX and UI design expertise provided by Rossul, which remains a superior option among UX and UI design firms.

Why Should Your Business Choose Rossul?

The UX remains a vital consideration during the development of a mobile or web app — a trend unlikely to end any time soon. As more companies explore ways to create state-of-the-art apps, your business will want to do everything it can to differentiate itself from others on the market.

Thankfully, Rossul serves as a UX and UI design firm like no other. Unlike many traditional UX and UI design firms, Rossul boasts experience in many business sectors, including:

Rossul also commits the necessary time and resources to ensure an app's UX and UI meet the needs of end users every time. We recognize that creating beautiful, functional apps can be a daunting task for even the biggest company, but we work with our clients to help them find the best way to keep the end user happy.

We review all aspects of an app, including user backgrounds and expectations. This enables us to create a user experience strategy, and get a better idea about how users will interact with the app, as well as what environment they’ll use it in. Plus, we're unafraid to get to the root of the UX, and will ask plenty of questions to allow us to design blueprints, workflows and user personas that fit your app's UX needs. We’ll work with you every step of the way to creating a solution that meets your end users' needs.

At Rossul, we want to be different from other UX and UI design companies. We don't want to chase the latest UX and UI design trends, and instead will collaborate with your company to help you deploy a user-friendly app that drives value for your business.

Take advantage of Rossul to work toward building an app that your end users are sure to appreciate. Learn more about our UX and UI design offerings or call us at 416.964.2212.

ROSSUL is one of the top UX/UI design firms in Canada, with more than 15 years of experience creating highly usable and intuitive B2B solutions. Driven by our passion for compelling and usable designs, we specialize in UX and UI design for desktop and mobile applications and apps.